CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI ■ ■ bhubaneswar l thursday l january 20, 2022 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION SC gives chief secys of AP, Bihar a piece of its mind over tardy relief is total callousness and negligence on part of Andhra Pradesh... It is unfortuAppalled at the slow pace of disbur- nate that directions of this court are sal of Covid ex-gratia by a few states de- taken so lightly. Your chief secretary spite multiple directions, the Supreme and chief minister are not above law. Court on Wednesday asked the chief People are not at your mercy This is an . secretaries of Bihar and Andhra order by the court and you are not Pradesh to appear before it, statobliging us by following it,” the ing people cannot be left at the bench said. mercy of the executive. In the post-lunch session, both The court directed states to Andhra Pradesh Chief Secreshare complete details about the tary Sameer Sharma and his Binumber of Covid deaths as har counterpart Amir Subhawell as information uploaded ni appeared. By then, Andhra Slap on on the Bal Swaraj Portal with had updated its figures. It said Kerala’s wrist it received 41,292 applications their respective State Legal While Telangana Services Authorities. in all out of which 34,819 were had officially It also directed states to go found eligible, and 23,835 have recorded 3,993 by the information uploaded already received compensadeaths, it received on the Bal Swaraj Portal to oftion. Of the 10,984 to be paid, 28,969 claims. In fer compensation and reha5,141 will get it within three contrast, Kerala’s bilitation to all children ordays. Also, the rejected claims official toll is phaned by the virus. will be reviewed suo motu, While Andhra Pradesh’s of- 49,300 but has just Sharma assured. 27, 274 claims. ficial records show 14,471 CovBihar, too was pulled up for id deaths, after the Supreme “What is this going receiving just 11,095 claims. on in Kerala? Why Court’s orders in June and OcThe bench felt the state had are there so few tober to pay `50,000 ex-gratia, not done enough to communithe state received 36,205 claims claims? Why cannot cate the scheme to the people. as on January 16. But compen- officials reach out to It refused to accept that Bisation had been given to only the family or the kin har’s official Covid toll was for compensation? 12,090. The state’s recorded 11,464 so far. A bench of justices M R Let your people find toll as on March last year was Shah and Sanjiv Khanna said, out the families of 3,737. The bench also rapped victims,” the “It is unfortunate that despite Gujarat, Maharashtra and bench said our earlier directions... there Jharkhand for low disbursal. E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ New Delhi defection to BJP from Mulayam’s pariwar Lucknow: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav joined the BJP on Wednesday, saying that she supports the good governance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, the real reason was SP chief Akhilesh’s reluctance to give her a ticket for the upcoming polls so as not to create alternative power centres. Aparna is married to Prateek Yadav, the son of Mulayam’s second wife Page 8 Global 777 Flights Hit by U.S. 5G rollout Air India cancelled eight flights on India-US routes till further noSeveral global airlines, includ- tice. These include services being Air India, have cancelled their tween Delhi and San Francisco, flights to the US as a precaution- Chicago and JFK, as well as beary measure to avoid accidents tween Mumbai and Newark. “We due to the 5G rollout in North are working closely with aircraft America from Wednesday. The manufacturers and the relevant move follows a warning from the authorities to alleviate operationUS aviation regulator al concerns, and we Why it’s a US that the high-speed telhope to resume our US problem ecom service could inservices as soon as posterfere with the radio While 5G has been sible,” it said. altimeters used by air- introduced in other US telecom groups craft to take off and AT&T and Verizon, countries without land. This is because which are rolling out creating safety the band on which al- concerns for airlines, 5G, claimed the servictimeter works is very the services planned es won’t interfere with close to that of the 5G aircraft technology The . in the US differ in system. several ways as they Federal CommunicaThe US Federal Avia- include the C-band tions Commission, tion Administration frequencies, which which set a buffer be(FAA) has allowed air- are closer to those tween the 5G band and craft with accurate, ret h e s p e c t r u m t h at used by aircraft’s liable altimeters to fly planes use, has also sensitive into airports with 5G equipment, and at cleared the services in signals but the widely higher power levels the vicinity of air trafused Boeing 777 is not fic. However, the FAA on the list, triggering large-scale saw a potential problem and the flight cancellations. Many global telcos agreed to pause the service airlines including Emirates, Air n e a r a i r p o r t s wh i l e i t i s France, Lufthansa, British Air- addressed. ways, All Nippon Airways, KoreThe 5G services were originally an Air, Cathay Pacific and Aus- scheduled to start in the US in Detrian Airlines either cancelled cember 2021, but the operators detrips or used planes other than layed it by a month to allow time 777s to fly to US destinations. for safety reviews. express read No foreign chief guest at R-Day celebrations again New Delhi: For the second straight year, there would be no foreign heads of state or government as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations due to the Covid-19 situation, it was learnt on Wednesday. Although a formal announcement is still to be made, this has been finalised, sources said | P7 E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e Jab-o-meter Take your shot Jan 18 65,85,945 doses Jan 19 62,39,005 doses Total: 1,59,54,40,865 NATIONWIDE Jan 18 Jan 19 Fresh cases 2,38,018 2,82,970 Recoveries 1,57,421 1,88,157 Deaths 310 441 odisha Jan 18 Jan 19 Fresh cases 11,086 11,607 Recoveries 7,745 6,785 Deaths 04 06 Akhilesh may contest, will seek Azamgarh’s approval Lucknow: After the announcement of the candidature of UP CM Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Shahar in the upcoming Assembly elections, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to have made up his mind to follow suit, the hint of which he gave in Lucknow on Wednesday | P8 Panel nod for regular market approval to Covishield, Covaxin New Delhi: An expert panel of India’s central drug authority on Wednesday recommended granting regular market approval to Covid vaccines Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India, and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, which are currently only authorised for emergency use in the country, subject to certain conditions, official sources said | P7 PLA abducted Indian boy from Arunachal: BJP MP Tapir Gao New Delhi: China’s People’s Liberation Army has abducted a 17-year-old boy from Arunachal Pradesh’s Upper Siang district, BJP MP Tapir Gao said on Wednesday. The boy, Miram Taron, was abducted on Tuesday, Gao said adding the incident came to light when the boy’s friend managed to escape and informed authorities Shocking brutality Man ‘shoots dead’ stray dog, injures another E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bhubaneswar IN yet another shocking incident of animal cruelty, a man killed a stray dog and injured another allegedly by using a firearm at Jagamara area here on Wednesday . The incident took place at Tala Sahi late in the afternoon. Locals spotted the injured animal and informed an animal welfare organisation, Sewa Hi Sankalp Anusthan. Founder of the organisation Rajesh Prusty and his colleagues rushed to the spot and began treatment of the injured dog when the locals again informed the team about another canine lying on the premises of a house nearby . However, on reaching the house they found the second dog dead. The death prima facie was due to pellet injuries in the chest part. The injured dog too had sustained similar injuries in the spinal cord. “We rushed the injured dog to our shelter in Forest Park. Its condition is critical and the animal is paralysed. The dog which was killed and the injured one are seven to eight years old,” Prusty said. When the members of Sewa Hi Sankalp confronted the accused, he claimed that he used a catapult to hit the two dogs as they had killed his 10 to 15 chickens. “He denied using any arms but we suspect he shot the two dogs using an air gun. We have lodged a complaint in this connection at Khandagiri police station and two witnesses are ready to give their statements too,” said Prusty . But what comes as a concern is that the accused in such cases of animal cruelty get away easily. Members of the organisation alleged that the accused dared them to take whatever measures they wanted to take against him including approaching the police. Meanwhile, the accused has absconded after the organisation members lodged a complaint at the Khandagiri police station. Police informed that efforts are on to nab him. This is not the first time when a stray dog has been killed in the Capital City. In April last year, a pregnant dog was brutally killed by a woman and her neighbour. Similarly, a man had killed five puppies in the city in June, 2021. The naval brass band performs during a full rehearsal for Beating Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi on Wednesday | PTI